Scallywag Press formed in 2019 and we can happily say that Spy Readers has had the pleasure of reading every single book they have published! As Scallywag Press recently celebrated its 5th birthday, we thought we’d highlight 15 of their wonderful books that we recommend:
5 Books for Empathy
- The Rabbit Listened
- Me and My Sister
- The Tale of the Whale
- Phyllis & Grace
- The After Christmas Tree
5 Books by Jon Agee
- Milo’s Hat Trick
- Little Santa
- Life on Mars
- The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau
- The Wall in the Middle of the Book
5 Books to Inspire Amazing Lessons
- A New Green Day
- Eye Spy
- A Gallery of Cats
- We Found a Seed
- One-Button and the Sea
5 Books for Empathy
1. The Rabbit Listened
This is a gorgeous story with the key message that listening is often the best thing we can do when someone is upset. Often we can be so desperate to help a person in need that sometimes we jump straight in with advice, rather than first giving them a chance to talk. Or perhaps we assume that what has worked for us, when we’ve been sad, will work for someone else. This story is both engaging and educational at the same time and is a book that we believe every young child (and some adults) should read.
Book Themes: listening (the importance of listening to someone when they’re upset, rather than telling them how to feel), emotions, animals, heartache, disappointment (dealing with upset), building (coping when it goes wrong), advice, empathy
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: When Taylor is building something and it all falls apart, all of the animals are keen to tell her how to feel and react. Then rabbit comes along and takes the time to just sit and listen.
Author & Illustrator: Cori Doerrfeld
Publisher: Scallywag Press
2. Me and My Sister
A book that will help some young children feel they’re not alone as they see parts of their own life played out on the pages before them. For other children, it provides an age-appropriate insight into what family life can look like for those with an autistic sibling. And if you think this book is as good as we do, you should definitely check out another of Rose Robbins’ books, ‘Talking is Not My Thing’.
Book Themes: siblings, autism, feelings (not everyone is understanding of the sister’s needs or the way she communicates), love, friendship, relationships, school (the siblings attend different schools), home, diversity, communication (autistic sister not speaking with words- uses sounds), empathy
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: A sweet, subtle look at the highs and lows of life with an autistic sibling. At the end we see that their relationship is one of mutual love.
Author & Illustrator: Rose Robbins
Publisher: Scallywag Press
3. The Tale of the Whale
Are you looking for a book to help enthuse your child or a class about the importance of tackling the pollution in our seas? Then look no further. The beautiful illustrations take the reader on a journey of exploration through an underwater world, showing children the damage that pollution can cause to unsuspecting sea creatures. With a call to action to finish the book, it will have children marching towards their local beach with a bin bag in hand!
Book Themes: whale, plastic pollution (the whale shows the child how pollution is hurting sea creatures), oceans, seas, sea creatures, environmental damage, environmental change (the story encourages young readers to tackle the issue of plastic pollution in our oceans), journey (the child travels the world with the whale and sees amazing things), empathy (caring for the environment and wildlife)
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: A young child and a whale form a very special friendship but the child then becomes aware of the plastic pollution that is destroying the oceans.
Author: Karen Swann
Illustrator: Dharmacharini Padmacandra
Publisher: Scallywag Press
4. Phyllis & Grace
There are some topics and conversations that can be very difficult to broach with a young child and dementia is of course one of those. However, with ‘Phyllis & Grace’, parents, carers and educators have been given a book which sensitively handles the topic and creates space for both discussion and questions. The storyline shows the sadness and difficulty this illness brings but, importantly for the intended audience, it also achieves a happy ending.
Book Themes: dementia (fading memory, forgetting names, where people are, who people are), old age, neighbours (caring next door neighbours, sharing food), friendship (friendship between a young girl and an elderly woman), honesty, family, compassion, innocence, photographs, horse riding, care home (Phyllis moves into a care home as her memory deteriorates), empathy
Suggested Age: 6+
What’s it about?: Phyllis lives on her own and her memory is fading. Grace is a little girl who lives next door to her and befriends her and finds that they have a lot in common.
Author: Nigel Gray
Illustrator: Bethan Welby
Publisher: Scallywag Press
5. The After Christmas Tree
This was a story that got passed around between our team at Spy Readers as its simple but unique storyline really captured each of us. A great picture book for teaching the themes of caring for others and recycling, this is one of those stories that will stay with you long after you’ve read the final page.
Book Themes: Christmas, caring for others, tree, worrying (concerned at how everyone is reacting to the tree and if he has broken his promise to the tree), happy ending, recycling (not just throwing a Christmas tree away), empathy
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: On a cold afternoon in January, Brian sees a little Christmas tree, bereft of its decorations and discarded by the roadside. He immediately decides to take it home with him and look after it . . . But will it be as easy as he thinks?
Author & Illustrator: Bethan Welby
Publisher: Scallywag Press
5 Books by Jon Agee
1. Milo’s Hat Trick
Jon Agee brings his usual word-meets-illustration magic to a story all about magic. An adult will start reading this book and think that they can tell where it’s going, but how wrong they will be! Consider then how much joy a child will get from a story that is quite simply magic on the page.
Book Themes: magic, magician, bear, performance, show, humour
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Milo, an incompetent magician, goes to the forest to find a rabbit for his hat trick. Instead, he finds a bear—a very talented bear – who just might save Milo’s career…
Author & Illustrator: Jon Agee
Publisher: Scallywag Press
2. Little Santa
Have you ever wondered how Santa became Santa? Well, wonder no more with this superb origin story created from the brilliant mind of Jon Agee. How did Santa meet the elves? How did he get his sleigh? And why does he give children presents? All will be revealed in this magical Christmas story.
Book Themes: Santa (Santa as a child and what caused him to become the Santa that we now all know), humour, family (Santa saves his family when they are stuck in their house because of a snow storm), elves, North Pole
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Have you ever wondered what Santa Claus was like as a child? And are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin . . .
Author & Illustrator: Jon Agee
Publisher: Scallywag Press
3. Life on Mars
If you have a child or pupil who is interested in space, but who also likes a wacky story, then this will be right up their street! The text is relatively simple but the illustrations tell a story that is very different to what is being read and will have many children chuckling away at the silliness being created before them!
Book Themes: space, explorations, rocket ship, alien, humour, adventure
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: A young boy travels to Mars, determined to prove that there is life there. Is it really just nothing but miles and miles of rocks and dirt?
Author & Illustrator: Jon Agee
Publisher: Scallywag Press
4. The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau
A story that, whilst appropriate for younger children, will really capture a slightly older child with its clever storyline that twists and turns just like the snake in one of Felix Clousseau’s paintings! If anyone thinks that picture books are only simple stories, then this will stop them in their tracks.
Book Themes: humour, imagination, art, artists, being arrested (Clousseau is temporarily put in jail when his paintings keep causing problems), king
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Felix Clousseau becomes a famous artist, but soon finds that fame isn’t always a good thing! When his paintings land him in trouble, could one of them also save him?
Author & Illustrator: Jon Agee
Publisher: Scallywag Press
5. The Wall in the Middle of the Book
If you are looking for a book to help teach a child, or class, about the need to not judge other people without any evidence, then this is the book for you. In a world where the message is often to be suspicious of people who are different from ourselves, this book fights against that narrative and uses a mixture of fantastic illustrations and humour to achieve this.
Book Themes: humour, self-awareness, knight, tolerance, pride, suspicion (the knight thinks that everything on the other side of the wall is dangerous and wants to hurt him. He has no evidence for this though), prejudice (making assumptions), fantasy, animals
Suggested Age: 5+
What’s it about?: A picture book that shows what is happening either side of the wall. The characters cannot see over it so the knight makes assumptions about what is there and whilst doing so does not notice what is happening on his own side.
Author & Illustrator: Jon Agee
Publisher: Scallywag Press
5 Books to Inspire Amazing Lessons
1. A New Green Day
This is a story that young children will enjoy having read to them, but that the brilliance of it really comes to the fore when used with older children as a text to have fun with when exploring the reading skill of inference. And we’re speaking from experience when we say this, as a couple of the Spy Readers’ team have already done exactly that with this cleverly written book.
Book Themes: nature, riddles, insects, weather
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Who scribbles on the path in glistening ink? Who’s a comma in the long, long sentence of the stream? Over the course of a summer’s day, voices from the natural world pose a series of riddles to a curious little girl and, so too, the reader. And magically, in the hands of award-winning author and artist Antoinette Portis, the ordinary becomes extraordinary . . .
Author & Illustrator: Antoinette Portis
Publisher: Scallywag Press
2. Eye Spy
We felt that this book pairs really nicely with ‘A New Green Day’, working perfectly as the prequel in the sense that it also focuses on nature and can also be used when teaching children inference skills in their reading. The difference is that this book is far more accessible to younger children and they will find it easier to use the text’s clues to work out which new creature is being referred to on each page.
Book Themes: animals, riddles, nature, rhyming
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: A beautiful interpretation of the childhood game, I Spy, which will keep children entertained for hours. The lyrical, rhythmic text provides the clues . . . and the pictures provide the answers.
Author & Illustrator: Ruth Brown
Publisher: Scallywag Press
3. A Gallery of Cats
If you want a book to introduce children to some of the world’s most famous artists, and want to do so in a really engaging way, then this is perfect. It would be a great stimulus for a series of art lessons looking at famous artists from history, whilst also providing the perfect opportunity for exploring different artists’ styles and inspirations.
Book Themes: cats, art exhibition, famous artists, art
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Tom visits an exhibition where every picture features a different cat. As he passes the pictures each cat jumps out and follows him until they are frightened away by a big scary cat.
Author & Illustrator: Ruth Brown
Publisher: Scallywag Press
4. We Found a Seed
A great choice for helping children understand how plants grow and the lifecycle of a plant. A brilliant option for any Key Stage 1 science lesson on plants.
Book Themes: sunflower, plant (lifecycle of a plant), lifecycles, science, nature, growing
Suggested Age: 4+
What’s it about?: Two young children find a seed and do all they can to help it to grow!
Author & Illustrator: Rob Ramsden
Publisher: Scallywag Press
5. One-Button and the Sea
Sadly, the news is regularly filled with images of war-torn countries where families have to flee their homes, and this has also led to children being far more likely to have new classmates who are refugees. This book is a good introduction to what the experience of having to leave one’s home because of war might be like and could work equally well in acting as a catalyst for helping a refugee child talk through some of the emotions they are experiencing. The book ends happily with the child and their grandpa seemingly returning home – but it’s worth bearing in mind your intended audience as this might not be possible for all refugees. Therefore, as always, with a tough topic such as this, this is a book we would definitely recommend a parent, carer or teacher reading before sharing with a child or class.
Book Themes: grandparent, fleeing (the child and their grandpa had to flee their home- the reason for this isn’t made clear), sea, boats (they escape in a boat), fear (storms at sea and having to escape home), sadness, safety (the story finishes with them returning to a place of safety)
Suggested Age: 5+
What’s it about?: Grandpa, tell me the story again of when we went to sea. That’s a BIG story, One-Button. How does it begin? It begins with the uprooting . . .
Author: Sara Stanley
Illustrator: Viviane Schwarz
Publisher: Scallywag Press